The present invention belongs to the field of physics and medicine or, more precisely, to methods for characterizing and investigating the functional state of living organisms and the functional dynamics of the physiological processes taking place during the living organism's vital activity.
Living organism functional mapping reveals the earliest signs of pathologies on the basis of the integral picture of the organism's functioning. This opens up the possibility of avoiding radical methods of treatment which become necessary when such pathologies are revealed at a later stage of their development. That is why the methods related to the living organism's early functional diagnostics are very promising for the population screening and for development of preventive medicine.
For a long time, functional diagnostics of a living organism's state was performed only with the use of various tests which determined the quality and/or the reaction rates of the organism's physiological systems. Such tests made it possible to only estimate the functional state of the living organism's system when the organism was involved in some purposeful activity. Since the overall picture of the organism functioning was not investigated, such measurements did not give rise to the possibility of performing early diagnosis of pathology.
Only lately, when modern radio physics (electromagnetic theory) methods were applied to biomedical research, the possibility appeared of recording a complex picture of the spatial-temporal dynamics of a living organism's physical fields and radiations, yielding important information on the state of the organism's various regulative systems and organs in the course of natural vital activity.
The human body or organism is a dynamic self-regulative system. Its stability (homeostasis) is provided by the continuous functioning of different physiological systems. Variations in the organism's physiological parameters result in changes of the biological tissue's physical parameters, such as, for example, the temperature, dielectric permeability, magnetic susceptibility, electric impedance and potentials, currents, etc. The organism's functional dynamics are reflected in the above mentioned dynamic distributions of its physical parameters. Information on the functional dynamics are revealed in the real time scale by the dynamics of the organism's physical fields and radiations: infrared (IR), microwave, acoustical, optical radiations, electric and magnetic fields. Under these conditions, external fields and radiations become parmetrically modulated, with those of natural origin such as geomagnetic, electric, light, etc., being first observed.
Different methods of investigating and diagnosing a living organism's state which employ recording the above mentioned physical parameters are known.
For example, to determine the biological tissues' temperature, the tissue's own electromagnetic thermal radiations, which are most intensive at the middle IR-wavelength range, are recorded. Infrared dynamic thermal mapping methods, as described in Guljaev, Yu V., Godik, E. E. et al.,"on the possibilities of the functional diagnostics of the biological subjects via their temporal dynamics of the infrared images," USSR Academy Nauk Proceedings/Biophysics, 1984, vol. 277, pp. 1486-1491, are based on such measurements. This method permits both measuring the tissue temperature with accuracy better than 0.1 degree and investigating the spatial-temporal distribution of blood microcirculation at the near surface tissues of the living organism. To accomplish this, temporal changes in the spatial distribution of IR-thermal radiation intensity of the living organism tissues are recorded, which provides the spatial-temporal microcirculation dynamics in these tissues. This method is used for investigation of both the spontaneous functional dynamics and functional dynamics initiated by the reactions of the physiological systems to different functional tests: reflective and humoral ones. The data thus obtained are represented in the form of the temporal sequences of the thermal images and/or the spatial-temporal cuts. Pain reactions, hyper- and hypo- ventilation and the effects of pharmaceutical treatments are able to be visualized under these conditions. In addition, this method reveals regions with various disturbances in the regulative mechanisms, and differential diagnostics of such disturbances can be performed. This method also permits estimating the state of the internal organs via the study of the spatial-temporal dynamics of the IR-radiation intensity recorded at the areas where the dermatomers reflectively connected with the corresponding organs are located.
However, the main disadvantage of the above described method is that it does not permit investigating the functional interconnection between various physiological processes which occur in a living organism under investigation. IR-thermal radiation provides information only about the dynamics of slow microcirculation, since the depth examined does not exceed 100 um. At the same time, the process of the thermal projection to the skin surface of the deeper layers of the blood flow network takes several seconds. For this reason, the above method does not permit investigating the fast blood flow dynamics connected, for example, with cardio and/or respiratory processes. The application of this method for the description of the living organism's functional state is restricted by information contained in the slow temporal dynamics of the skin surface temperature.
Another well known method of living organism functional diagnostics is a multichannel measurement of physiological parameters. A whole family of the well known methods of multichannel polygraphy is based on such approach, as described in Hasset, J,"Introduction into psycho-physiology," Moscow, Mir, 1981 (translated into Russian), for example. According to this method signals or information derived simultaneously from several channels are measured. The most complete set of information is represented by simultaneous measurements of the electroencephalogram, electrocardiogram, arterial pressure, skin electric resistance and/or skin galvanic reaction, skin temperature, plethysmogram and electromyogram, as described in, for example, Yoshihiro, Ito, "Autogenic training and treating apparatus," U.S. Pat. No. 4,573,472, 4 Mar. 1984. On the basis of the temporal dynamics of the recorded. parameters, the living organism's functional state is judged. Recording of several different physiological signals gives a more accurate description of the organism's state.
At the same time, the multichannel polygraphy method reflects the temporal dynamics of the above parameters only at several discrete points of the organism and neither permits determination of the spatial distribution of the physiological reactions, i.e., the spatial portrait of the living organism's functioning, nor the investigation of the functional dynamics of the whole-organism's connectivity of the physiological systems.
A method of functional diagnostics based on multichannel mapping of the spatial-temporal distributions of the physical field tensions and radiation intensities of the human body (living organism) is also known, and described in Godik, E. E., Guljaev, Yu V. Human and animal physical fields, "V mire nauki" (Russian version of Scientific American), 1990, no. 5, pp. 74-83. This method is based on the following approach to determining the functional state of a living organism.
The human body or living organism, as a self-regulative system, is functionally inhomogenous and non-stationary. For that reason its functioning and its multilevel regulative mechanisms are described by a hierarchy of rate constants from milliseconds to minutes, hours to days, etc. An adequate method of providing radio physical (electromagnetic) monitoring of such a system is called dynamic mapping, i.e., recording the temporal sequences of the instantaneous distributions (maps) of the physical fields tensions and/or radiation intensities over time intervals which are much less than the corresponding time constants of the regulative processes. The temporal map sequences thus obtained are called dynamic maps.
For example, to determine the tissue temperature of a living organism, its electromagnetic thermal radiation is recorded by means of infrared dynamic thermovision. The details of this method were described above.
More specifically, a low intensity microwave thermal radiation comes from the organism's depth. Its brightness reflects non-inertially the functional dynamics of heat production and blood flow rate in the muscles, brain cortex and internal organs. Recording of such radiation is performed at wavelengths of about 3-30 cm, while the depth it comes from is of the order of 2-5 cm.
More detailed information about the spatial distribution of the thermal production functional dynamics inside the living organism is revealed by thermal acoustic radiation at an ultrasound frequency range of hundreds kilohertz to megahertz (corresponding to a wavelength of about 1 mm). Ultrasound waves, produced by thermal acoustic noise of the organism's tissues, come to the organism's surface from a greater depth (5-10 cm) and bring information, in real time scale, about functioning of the internal organs, such as the liver.
The organism's fast reflective regulation and functioning are revealed, in particular, in neural activity and in the muscular excitation processes. Information on these fast processes (the characteristic times are in the millisecond region) is revealed by a dynamic picture of the electrical potentials at the skin surface, and, especially, by the spatial-temporal dynamics of the magnetic fields around the body surface. Electric activity of the living organism's heart and brain are investigated by means of magnetic dynamic mapping.
Without illumination, extra weak radiation (chemoluminescence) of the skin covers connected with lipid peroxidation is observed in the optical yellow-green spectral range. Its intensity is determined by the antioxidizing status of the organism investigated. Under conditions of external illumination, the chemiluminescence intensity increases and, in addition, temporally and spectrally dynamic optical pictures appear at the near 1R-wavelength range. It is the radiation back scattered by the biological tissues that produces this picture; it comes from the depth of up to one centimeter and characterizes the functional redistribution of the physiological pigments, especially various forms of blood hemoglobin.
In addition to the living organism's own physical fields and radiations, the organism's functional status is reflected in the external fields and radiations spatial-temporal dynamics, which are modulated as a result of the living organisms' physiological system's activity. Thus, blood redistribution related to cardiac pulsations is parametrically reflected in the geomagnetic field spatial-temporal dynamics near the torso, and the microcirculation dynamics of the capillary blood content is parametrically reflected by means of changes in the electrical tissue impedance. Electrical tissue impedance is measured by means of spatial-temporal distribution of external electrical fields having frequencies from tens to hundreds of kilohertz.
A considerable disadvantage of this latter method is that the dynamic maps provided by the measured parameters are considered separately. Furthermore, this method does not permit a comparison of variations in the spatial and temporal dynamics in different physical parameters which provide information on the state of different physiological systems and processes. In addition, this disadvantage relates equally to all the above described methods and noticeably limits their potential to reveal pathology.
Let's consider, for example, muscle functioning. Approximately a second before a mechanical contraction of a muscle takes place, a source of an electric excitation appears at the motor brain cortex. This excitation is reflected within the millisecond time interval in the dynamic maps of the electrical potential at the scalp and in those of the magnetic field around the head. Then, the dynamic picture of the electric and magnetic signals at the immediate proximity of the muscle surface develops, reflecting electric motor neuron excitation. Further, the whole muscle is affected by this electric excitation and this latter process is reflected in the delayed dynamics of the skin electric potential and magnetic field above the muscle. All these processes proceed in about one second, and only after their completion does a mechanical muscle contraction develop. In tens of seconds after this, radio thermal and acoustico thermal radiations are increased, characterizing the "energy payment" for the muscle contraction. An increase in the microcirculation, supporting the muscle tissue metabolic resource, is reflected in the multi-spectral dynamic map of the back scattered optical radiation of the near IR-range, and also in the dynamic map of the muscle tissue electric impedance.
Consequently, the most complete information on the functional state of a physiological system and organ could only be obtained via the simultaneous measurements of a set of independent parameters of physical fields and radiations measured at different spectral ranges. None of the existing methods permit the analysis of the spatial-temporal interconnection between the dynamic maps recorded for different ranges. It is the interconnection of the above mentioned parameters that reflects the functional connectivity of any organ within the living organism. Pathology at an early stage is revealed in the disturbances of such connectivity.